One and a half hours wasted

I spent an hour trying to figure out why my avatar wasn’t moving when my Bluetooth connections were fine. Giving up in frustration, I searched Google for answers and found an archived thread here stating that you get your first 25 km free, and after that you need to pay for the monthly membership, otherwise…your avatar won’t move.

What? Cripes. So I paid, as I had had every intention of doing. It’s just that I was waiting for notification about when my free trial was up, but, UNLIKE EVERY OTHER FORM OF APP OR SOFTWARE OUT THERE, it never came.

And presumably there’s a time lag between payment registering and the Zwift avatar functioning again, because I subsequently spent a half hour trying to get my avatar moving to no avail.

This is unacceptable. You need to make it extremely clear when a free trial is up. There need to be bells and whistles and popups announcing that your free trial is up.

Big fail on this, Zwift.

Sorry to hear about your experience. I recall it being pretty clear when my trial was up. I can’t remember exactly what notification I got, but something pretty straightforward. And every time my subscription has run out (I generally redeem a Zwift membership gift card) my subscription has started back up immediately. Perhaps there is some other issue?

Have you been using the free trial for a long time?

No, just a week or two, and just two rides in total.

I logged into Zwift tonight and there was no indication whatsoever that anything was unusual save for the fact that my avatar did nothing when I began pedalling. No notification or sign anywhere on the app that I needed to register my credit card details and start making payment (which I’d fully intended to do).

Yeah, for me there was no special notification, just the remaining amount of distance would appear in giant letters at the bottom of the screen. And I believe the mascot squirrel would also remind me. But if it counts down to 0 during the ride I could keep riding. Presumably if I never exit Zwift I could use it free forever.

The avatar would only remain in place if the trial had already expired prior to the login. Then it would tell me in giant letters that I have 0 distance remaining and I should become a member.

“Then it would tell me in giant letters that I have 0 distance remaining and I should become a member.”

Interesting. I got nothing like that at all. Wonder why?

Okay, I’m now a fully paid-up user of Zwift, but no change, my avatar does not move. WTF is going on?

Is there a chance it has to do with me logging in and making payment on one computer while logging in and attempting to ride on another? Is there some kind of IP address voodoo going on?

That should not matter. I regularly pay on my PC but always ride on ATV. Perhaps your trainer just isn’t pairing with the app? What is your setup?

It worked fine during the free trial, but stopped working when I tried to use it again after having surpassed the initial 25 km. Since then I paid via credit card, but it still doesn’t work.

My power source and controllable trainer both pair without a problem.

I have a Lynx VR trainer going to a laptop. The Lynx VR isn’t very well known, but it was designed to use its own ride software. Using it with Zwift requires two ANT+ sticks plugged into the laptop (it’s complicated, but that’s how it works).

Who knows why, but it works now. The only possible reason for this I can think of is that there was a two-day delay following my credit card payment for some reason.